


Scenario

by malyce



Category: Angel: the Series
Genre: Character Death, Graphic Violence, suicide references
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-14
Updated: 2013-06-14
Packaged: 2017-12-15 00:13:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/843075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/malyce/pseuds/malyce
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's a grim scenario, but Kate should be used to those by now.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Scenario

It would never be possible for Kate to verbalize the merry go round of emotions that passed through her mind as she scrubbed the bits of dried blood from under her fingernails with a paper towel and a dime sized drop of dish washing soap. The only thing in her mind that she could identify as a coherent thought was the word breathe. She closed her eyes, and brushed a strand of light hair out of her eyes. If she had seen her reflection, she would have known that her blue eyes were strangely glassy.  
  
 _Just calm down,_ she instructed herself, _You are... were a cop. You've seen blood before._ She had seen mutilated corpses, but it had been in the impersonal context of a crime scene. The strangely clinical flashing blue lights of the police cars, and the yellow tape that separated the victim from her own, everyday life were missing from her house.  
  
When she left junior college to join the police force, Kate had been trained by her superiors to play a game that they called "scenario." The "game," if it could rightfully be called by such a trivial term, involved walking down the street, and visualizing every way that the people one encountered could commit a violent crime.  
  
 _What if the man across the street has a gun? What will you do then?_ she was trained to ask herself, _What if he has a gun, and he's about to break into the shop on the corner? What if he's been using drugs and doesn't know where he is? What if he resorts to violence?  
  
What if, just when you and your husband think you've finally escaped from Los Angeles, a demon force from your lover's past rips out his heart and leaves you with nothing to do but hold his hand after he's already dead, and force back the tears?_  
  
From the day she and Lindsey had moved into the suburban house, Kate knew that they weren't going to be happy. Happiness was something that eluded people who would remain haunted as long as they lived, but she knew something else that she had never before felt. She felt it on those long rides in Lindsey's truck down a road that ran along the Rio Grande River. She understood what it was when he impulsively ran his fingers through her hair and chided her for "borrowing" his flannel shirts during the winter.   
  
What now? She had no family, no friends to speak of, and no ties to the world, no career. She looked at Lindsey's eviscerated form. He was lying on his side, with his mortal wound facing the opposite direction.  
  
There was, of course, one dark card she had not played. She had tried it once before, and had been pulled away from the edge by Angel. She had another chance to lay it on the table now, and her eyes drifted over the sticky black and maroon stains over the white carpet to the box where Lindsey kept his father‘s old shotgun.  
  
The pornographic nature of the scene dawned on her as she wrapped her lips around the shotgun barrel. Before she had a chance to release the bullet into the back of her skull, she caught another glimpse of the horrific sight of Lindsey lying on the floor.  
  
 _What if all of your misery can be traced back to one person who, by all rights, should have been dead more than a century ago?_  
  
She removed the gun from between her lips, leaving a trail of saliva on the barrel and an aftertaste of rust in her mouth. She had to work her tongue around her dry lips a few times to dull the bitter sensation.  
  
 _You tell him that you've stopped running and aren't going to hide anymore,_ she answered herself, _If you can't live a normal life, you help Angel fight the big bad however you can._ It was a bleak scenario, but she remembered one thing from her extensive training: moving forward was always better than staying in one place.


End file.
